Thursday, January 29, 2004

ISRAEL - NOT A SOFT STATE, HUH?

For years, we in India talk about how Israel deals with terrorists with an iron fist and how we are a "soft state" in terms of the way we deal with them. First of all, India has done some pretty bad stuff, so it is not like we are a "soft state". What we dont seem to realise is that Israel is supported, financially and militarily, by the United States, and it is facing a bunch of ragtag organisations that, though motivated, are pretty slim on resources. The most they can do to attack Israel is send some suicide bomber over. Israel however can use its planes and bomb the daylights out of the terrorists, assured of the veto power support of USA.

We however are facing Pakistan, a big country with a disciplined, reasonably well-equipped army. Plus they have nuclear weapons. Remember how much pressure there was on us from USA even when we were throwing terrorists out of our own territory in Kargil?

So we should consider all these facts before we genuflect in front of the Israelis for their "manliness" and lament our "cowardice".

Remember how everyone (myself included) cribbed when we released 3 terrorists in exchange for 150 hostages? Israel, the "hardline" state is releasing 400 prisoners in exchange for 1...yes "ONE" hostage....and some dead bodies(!!). How about that, huh?

An excerpt from the article -

Since Israel's founding in 1948, Israel has participated in several dozen prisoner exchanges with its Arab neighbors, many of them lopsided in the Arabs' favor. In 1985, Israel freed 1,150 Palestinians in exchange for three soldiers held in Lebanon.